Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2007 blog tell-me-how-yo

By Janelle Godfrey

It’s that time of year again… when you count down the days until you are done with studying, when the mandatory cap and gown fittings occur and the graduation tickets need to be ordered, when you look to the future and hope that the education you received in the past four (or five or six years : )) was actually worth the money you spent. When you leave the safe confines of academia and venture into that crazy world of “your first real job”.

It can be both an empowering feeling and a frightening one all at the same time. I know that when I was snuggled cozily within the business buildings of the University of Washington, I felt that I was getting the best education known to man. No matter how many schools were deemed “best, highest salary, highest SAT, most competitive”, I felt satisfied with my choice. And I still am.

I’ve been out of school for a little over five years now (gosh, that makes me feel old!). And it’s funny, I never once questioned my education until I entered the job market. I can recall happily offering up my transcript to the first recruiter who asked my name, gleefully highlighting my steady improvement from sophomore to senior year (and super senior year, yes I graduated in five). And sadly, no one wanted to see it.

I shopped my transcript around like it was a film script from a USC theater graduate. I was proud not only of the grades that I had received, but also of the university that I attended. I still thought that the school you attended somehow proved how smart and talented you would be in the workforce. Boy, was I wrong.

The purpose of this blog is to invite discussion. So what I want to ask is;

Why did you choose your college and do you think it has a correlation to your success in the workforce? Does the school you attended actually matter when you enter the technology workspace?

Now I am all for higher education. As an employee of Microsoft, I highly value those strategic minds that come to us from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon. I see value in all education, but I‘m really curious about your thoughts on this question.

I recently watched an episode of 20/20 where they had a great piece called “The Privilege of Education”. In this news piece, they spoke about how many of the top schools are taking students well below their “bar” based on monetary and political reasons. Although it’s interesting and that may indeed be the case, I'm not so concerned because my stance is that with the rising cost of education and the increased number of students going to college, one cannot judge a candidate based solely on where he or she received their degree. You need to measure the merit of the student based on a lot of different factors.

A perfect example is this: I work for what we dub the “National” team within MS college recruiting. My team sources those candidates that do not attend a handful of schools that we deem “Most Competitive”. These "Most Competitive" schools are those with the big names,Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2007, and a lot of the students who attend are SMART, smarter than I could ever dream of being. But that doesn’t mean that students who DON’T go to these schools aren’t equally smart...if not smarter.

I held an offsite recruiting event last year in the great state of Texas. I invited students from all of the top schools that I recruit for in the area to apply. After several hundred phone screens, and five days of onsite interviews, we stack-ranked our top candidates. At the top of the list was a student from a small school called Prairie View A/M. Not one of our Most Competitive schools, but he was a Most Competitive candidate. And he had chosen his school because it made sense for him and given his circumstances, he knew that he didn’t need to pay top dollar to further his education at a big name school.

I’m not saying that top schools aren’t worth it, because in many cases, they are. What I am saying is that great companies need to look outside the box, and realize that top students/candidates attend schools for various reasons.

I’ve had great candidates who chose to attend community college because they had families, were working full-time, or any number of other personal reasons. I’ve had great candidates who attended small liberal arts schools because they were confident in their coding ability and knew that they wanted a more well-rounded education. And I've had students who have attended places I've never even heard of and that have blown the SOCKS off all interviews. So much so that their interviewers demand to know how I can find more people like them.

I'm passionate about this discussion partially due to the emphasis that Google has on where someone goes or went to school. Many of my candidates have been turned away from Google just because of the school name on their resume. So, I suppose I should offer up a "thank you, Google"! It’s the year 2007, and I think I'm benefiting from working at a company that isn’t biased about where you went to school. Some of the smartest people I work with and have hired have emerged from the most unlikely of places.

I'd like to hear from you - those of you who went to the small schools and succeeded big time, and others who have an opinion on the topic. Share with the rest of us why you are/were happy with your decision, and the impact your school choice has made on the type of worker you will be in the future.

- Janelle